Something of a cult, this. In 1972—that year again—the Brits made a dreadful zombie movie wherein frog-worshipping biker boys commit suicide, then return, undead, to burn up motorways and terrorise old ladies like Beryl Reid outside supermarkets. Fog, satanism and skull helmets, on a budget of around nine quid. The soundtrack, however, by Kes man John Cameron, has changed hands for daft money since, and now appears on CD. It mixes wah-wah rock, choral arias and phased backwards drums for no better reason than that Cameron felt like it.
One-time Ed Kuepper cohort Hancock has been in various Australian bands since the '80s, and it shows across her maturely enthralling solo debut, on which she sounds like a less fractured Marianne Faithfull. Backed by a fine band who effortlessly blur the boundaries between rock, folk and jazz, her own compositions are marked by arresting observations on the war of the sexes. Yet best of all are her extraordinarily haunting covers of David Crosby's "Everybody's Been Burned" and, more improbably, Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" done country-rock style.
In most cultures, seven is a magic number. Not in rock'n'roll, where to sustain any degree of originality beyond album three or four is about as rare as a sober Shane MacGowan.
The TV version of Chris Morris' Radio 1 series Blue Jam (plus the late-night counterpart, Jaaaaam, also included here) pushed beyond the edges of comedy with an almost sadistic determination into a blurry miasma of appalling, nightmare scenarios, Kafkaesque horror and bitter, acidic satire, to the bleak accompaniment of a dark ambient soundtrack. The heaviest 'light entertainment' ever attempted, Jam didn't so much make you laugh as fill you with a rapt, faintly nauseous feeling of unease.
